The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China (32 page)

The fault lay, in large part, with the intolerant nature of the missionaries themselves, and their refusal to partake, even a little, of things Chinese. Other foreign religions had always adapted themselves to some degree to the indigenous culture. Even today, the Great Mosque of Xian, built in China’s ancient capital during the fourteenth century, is outwardly indistinguishable from the more usual Buddhist temples of the region,
⁶
as is the Jewish synagogue at Kaifeng.
⁷
While early Christians did do their best to adapt to local conditions (the Jesuit fathers even petitioning the Pope–unsuccessfully–to permit ancestor worship) the typical nineteenth-century missionary saw Christianity purely in terms of a superior European civilisation. It was not sufficient that places of worship were established for Christian converts, the buildings had to be perfect facsimiles of European churches, built in stone, with romanesque arches and tall spires pointing straight towards Heaven.

What the missionaries failed to understand, or chose to ignore, was that such buildings, in themselves, were deeply offensive to Chinese beliefs. Chinese geomancy,
feng shui
, saw all nature as interrelated, part of an intricate web of energies, whose disparate elements must be kept in balance if the earth was to function harmoniously.
⁸
Just as a human possessed
Qi
, life energy, channelled along meridians in the body, so too in the body of the earth were there tides of vital energy flowing through telluric lines of force, the earth meridians. Human activity, especially buildings in inappropriate locations, could distort the flow of these energies and cause disruption to the natural cycles upon which all life depended. For the Chinese, the Christian churches, built without concern for the
feng shui
of the area, with their tall spires and deep foundations, were the equivalent of acupuncture needles driven heedlessly into the body of a healthy human–in both cases they must distort the flow of energy and result in disease. With such a world-view, it was inevitable that from now on, the fault for any of the natural disasters that periodically assailed China would be laid at the door of the ‘foreign devil’.

With the advent of the ‘forward policy’ among the Great Powers, and the threat that China might be partitioned, a new layer of suspicion and hatred was added. The missionaries were now seen as advance elements of the conquering powers, as spies intent on the subjugation of the Sons of Han, and the destruction of the Empire. Western technologies further alienated the populace: steamships prevented boatmen from plying trade and ‘the labourers from the countryside...had lost their livelihoods from carts, boats and shops because of the railroads’.
⁹

In the face of such ‘provocations’, xenophobia became patriotism, and the Righteous Harmonious Fists (nicknamed ‘Shadow Boxers’ or simply ‘Boxers’ by the missionaries and other foreigners), became a government-tolerated focus for all discontent with their slogan ‘Uphold the Qing and exterminate the foreigners’. Many posters appeared, explaining the Boxers’ grievances and their solution:

Attention: all people in markets and villages in all provinces of China–now, owing to the fact that the Catholics and Protestants have vilified our gods and sages, have deceived our emperors and ministers above, and oppressed the Chinese people below, both our gods and our people are angry at them...This forces us to practise the I-ho magic boxing so as to protect our country, expel the foreign bandits and kill Christian converts in order to save our people from miserable suffering.

By the spring of 1900, hundreds, then thousands of disaffected Chinese had rallied to the Boxers’ scarlet banners, donning red headbands and jackets and enthusiastically practising the ‘shadow boxing’ and incantations which they fervently believed would render them invulnerable to the weapons of the foreign devils. They roamed across Shandong Province, then crossed into Chihli and Shanxi, burning churches, destroying Christian property and slaying as many missionaries and converts as they could find. As their numbers grew, bands of Boxers began drifting northwards, towards Beijing, still proclaiming their intention of ridding China of all foreigners and their hated religion.

Immured behind the high walls of the Forbidden City, Yehonala was thrilled and delighted when reports of the Boxers, and their anti-foreign sentiments, reached her. In her heart she was at one with them in their desire to rid China of the barbarians, by violence if necessary. But the politician in her was wary: worried that their much-vaunted occult powers might not be sufficient for the task. ‘She does not approve of the Big Sword Society’s proposed extermination of the foreigners,’ wrote one Manchu official, a kinsman of Yehonala, ‘because she does not believe they can do it.
^’10

Apart from the incessant depredations upon her Empire, there were several pressing reasons why Yehonala wished to vent her spleen against the foreigners. The arch-reformer Kang Yu-wei had been saved from her Divine Wrath by the British and escorted to the safety of their colony in Hong Kong. Despite setting an unprecedented one hundred thousand-tael price on his head, she had seen him chaperoned to Japan where he was allowed to continue his seditious activities. And most recently, Yehonala had been particularly angered by the response of the foreign legations to her new attempt to remove the Emperor Kuang Hsu permanently from the scene.

After the coup of 1898, her nephew had been held in the Ocean Terrace, the picturesque, island-bound nest of red-lacquered pavilions, halls and marble walkways, set in the South Sea, which Yehonala had herself embellished. In her first flush of anger at Kuang Hsu’s attempted ‘coup’ she had ordered new ‘improvements’: many of the windows looking out over splendid views were bricked up, others were left open to the elements. The Emperor, already suffering from a variety of ailments, was kept half-starved and isolated, his quarters unswept, vermin-ridden and insufficiently heated. Such treatment could have only one motive. When persistent rumours spoke of the Emperor’s illness and imminent demise, Sir Claude McDonald conveyed to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Tsungli Yamen, his belief that the death of the Emperor would not incline the European Powers to friendship and might have a disastrous effect on the Empire. Yehonala was incensed by this meddling in China’s ‘internal affairs’, but she understood a veiled threat as well as anyone, and miraculously, from that time on the Emperor began to recover his health.

On 24th January 1900, Yehonala tried another tack: Pu’n Chun, the son of the reactionary Prince Tuan, ‘a boy of fourteen, very intelligent but violent-tempered’,
¹¹
was made the Ta-a-ko, the Heir Apparent to the throne. This was immediately understood by everyone at court to mean that Yehonala was setting the scene for Kuang Hsu’s departure from this world. But again, her murderous plans were thwarted by the Westerners. Contrary to all diplomatic convention, none of the foreign legations sent in their congratulations on this grand occasion. ‘The refusal on the part of the diplomatic corps to acknowledge the event deterred the reactionary party from carrying out their plan, and this particularly infuriated Prince Tuan, who was impatient to see his son enthroned’.
¹²

As the first of the Boxers began trickling into the capital, Yehonala called urgent meetings of the Grand Council to determine what the Dynasty’s policy should be. Many of the Princes of the Blood were Boxer enthusiasts, and believed implicitly in their powers. In part this may be due to their lack of education (the school for princes had been closed since the 1860s and many of the younger generation of nobles had little learning). Others took a less sanguine view of the Patriotic Bands’ chances against Western artillery and musketry. Jung Lu and his colleague Yuan Shi-kai were both privately opposed to encouraging the Righteous Harmonious Fists phenomenon, though they seem to have kept their counsel when in the presence of Yehonala’s pro-Boxer enthusiasms.

Some members of the foreign community were also becoming increasingly anxious about the perilous direction events seemed to be taking. Dr. George Ernest Morrison,
The Times
correspondent in Beijing, confided to his diary on 17th April that ‘...the danger of the Boxers is increasing. The danger is
scarcity of rain
which is attributed to the disturbance of the
feng shui
by foreigners.’ But Morrison was not unduly concerned at this time, adding, ‘If rains come, the Boxers will soon disappear’. However, nine days later he was reporting, ‘Anti-foreign literature is being sold in the streets. There has been some serious Boxer fighting near Paoting fu, with an alarming account of a ‘battle’ written by a missionary, Ewing, there.’

By mid-May, and with the rains still awaited, Morrison was informed by his Chinese servant that eight million men were about to descend from heaven to destroy the barbarians. Two days later, on 18th May, rain did fall, but contrary to expectations, the Boxer depredations continued and moved ever-closer to the capital. ‘French priests report 61 men women and children suffered death at Kaolo, midway between Paoting fu and Peking. Also trouble at Anshsien, from which people are fleeing by train into Peking. Some burned alive. The whole village of Kaolo is destroyed.’ The rain or lack of it was irrelevant now–anti-foreign feeling had reached critical mass, it possessed a momentum of its own and appeared unstoppable without government intervention. But of this there was no real sign.

By 19th May, Bishop Favier, the Vicar-Apostolic of Beijing, wrote to the French Minister, M. Pichon, requesting a force of forty or fifty sailors to protect the Peitang, the Roman Catholic cathedral that lay about two miles to the north-west of the legations. The Boxers’ known intention, declared Bishop Favier, was the destruction of all the Beijing churches: ‘for us, in our cathedral, the date of the attack has actually been fixed’, after which the Boxers were to lead an onslaught on the legations. M. Pichon was not impressed, telling Morrison that he considered Bishop Favier an alarmist. The British Minister, Sir Claude McDonald, shared Pichon’s view, writing rather complacently to the Foreign Office, ‘I confess that little has come to my knowledge to confirm the gloomy anticipations of the French Father’. Morrison was inclined to agree. ‘We cannot feel this peril in the air,’ he confided to his diary on the 21st, but added ominously that ‘all knives and swords have doubled in value. Shops are working day and night to supply the demand.
^’13

Safe behind the high walls of the legations, and all but isolated from real events in China, the foreign community continued their round of parties and socialising, the British celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday on 24th May, and six days later enjoying an evening of dance and music courtesy of ‘I-G’s Own’, Sir Robert Hart’s Chinese orchestra. But the gaiety was becoming strained; the diplomats had already obtained permission for the deployment of foreign troops to guard the legations, and the military detachment duly arrived on the 3rd June, an American contingent of fifty-six marines being the first to march proudly up Legation Street to their embassy.

The desire for troops was natural enough given the circumstances, but it served only to fuel Chinese resentment, especially when the number arriving, three hundred and eighty-nine men and sixteen officers from six different nationalities, turned out to be twice as many as had been agreed by the Tsungli Yamen. Sir Claude had by now changed his mind about Bishop Favier, commenting at the beginning of June that he was ‘very much alarmed’. The Chinese officials did not seem to share his concern. When, on 4th June, Henry Cockburn attended a crisis meeting at the Tsungli Yamen, one of the mandarins nodded off while the Englishman was making an important point. Cockburn swept out in high dudgeon: ‘There you have China... What are you to make of such a people? The Empress Dowager is giving a theatrical performance while the country is in serious stress and strife.’

Tension in the capital increased day by day until 9th June 1900 when a rumour swept the city that the Imperial Government had decided to murder all foreigners in Beijing. Fearing the worst, Sir Claude McDonald telegraphed the head of the British Naval Force, Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, requesting additional troops to guard the legations; he later rescinded his request after speaking to the heads of other legations, only to change his mind once more and beg for reinforcements on hearing further horrendous news: not confirmation that a massacre of foreigners was planned, but that a mob had invaded the Westerners’ Beijing racecourse–and had actually burned down the grandstand! With unconscious irony Sir Claude asserted that, more than any other incident, this act of desecration had brought home ‘more vividly...to the minds of all Europeans in Peking, a sense of the perilous position in which they stood’.

The British Consul in Tientsin called a meeting of all foreign ministers that same evening. The next day, at 9 a.m., an international force of over fifteen hundred men was en route for Beijing, carried in five separate trains. With hindsight, this ‘Seymour expedition’ was probably a mistake and it may have precipitated the very crisis it was intended to prevent. News of the ‘invasion’ by foreign troops spread rapidly and it galvanised the Chinese population all along the Tientsin–Beijing rail track. Within hours of the relief force leaving Tientsin the telegraph line to the capital was cut. And support for the Boxers blossomed. On 10th June the British Summer Legation on the Western Hill was put to the torch. The diplomatic staff watched the mounting violence with increasing alarm, looking to the approaching Seymour relief column to save the day, and very possibly their lives. So impatient were they that, on the 11th, several diplomats ventured out to Ma Chia Pu station to await the expected arrival of the relief column.

But the hours slipped by, morning turned to afternoon, and the promised trains never arrived. One by one the diplomats returned to their respective legations until only Mr. Sugiyama, the Japanese Chancellor, remained. Eventually, with night drawing on, even he gave up, riding back the way he had come in a small Chinese cart. As he passed the main gate of the southern city, the Muslim braves of Tung Fu-hsiang (who earlier that day had allowed him to pass out of the city unmolested) suddenly surrounded the cart, their faces sullen and full of menace. Within moments Sugiyama had been dragged from his seat and flung to the ground. Using their rifle butts, Tung’s men beat out his brains and left his body sprawled in the dusty road. According to some reports, his heart was cut from his chest and presented to General Tung as a souvenir. Sugiyama was the first of the foreign officials to die.